Learning how to draw can be a daunting task, especially for beginners. Fortunately, all thanks to the Internet, there are tons of free and useful drawing lessons online that will help you hone your drawing skills to perfection. You just need to know where to look. Here are some ways to find free lessons for your drawing passion:

Drawing communities

Drawing communities are a good place to start. These are forums, social websites that are dedicated to people with an interest in picking up the pencil. You should fit in very nicely in such a community. Often, you find lots of interesting lessons. These lessons are built up over time by the members of the community. If you think you have something to contribute in return, don’t hesitate to share. You will make more friends this way.

Video websites

There are tons of home made videos on how to draw. Many are made digitally using some kind of graphic editing software. They call such videos “speed drawing” and you can learn a lot just be viewing these videos. The process itself is not really fast, but the video is exported at 2 or 3 times the usual speed (and accompanied by great music too!). That makes the process appear much faster and more interesting. You literally see the image manifest itself in front of your eyes.

The greatest thing about videos is that you can pause or rewind the videos to see how the shape is formed. Drawing is all about shapes. You need to master shapes in order to do well. So make sure you pay attention to how shapes are formed in these videos.

Document uploading sites

These are actually a form of social networking site. Users upload documents and share them with other users. For example, I’ve once uploaded a free report with 7 useful drawing techniques, and it had received very good response. If you are a member of the site, you can download such material at no cost whatsoever. You can even share them with all your family and friends if you like.

Good old fashion way – search engines

Go to your favorite search engine, and type in search phrases related to free drawing resources. Utilize keywords like “free online drawing lessons”, “learning to paint online”, or “how to sketch”. You will be surprised at the search results that emerge.

The only problem with this approach is that you sometimes get web pages that are littered with ads. But still, since most of the content are of decent quality (and they are free), I’m sure you have no complaints. Most of the information that you are looking for will be available at no charge on the Internet. If you are willing to spend time searching for the information, you can almost always find them. But the process can be a little time consuming.

Paid content saves you time, and they are more well organized. At the end of the day, as long as the lessons help you improve, both free and paid content is good.

Marianne McPhie has a degree in Art History and has studied under some of Britain’s most respected botanical artists, such as Gillian Barlow and Anne-Marie Evans, former director of botanical illustration at the Chelsea Physic Garden. She had her first solo exhibition in 2003, and her flower prints sell worldwide. As well as tutoring workshops and writing on botanical art for magazines, she runs her own botanical drawing and painting courses in Southwell.